Ok, let's start something here. We all, or most of us, know about all the custom ECM tuning products available. PDI, Bully Dog, PP, Area Diesel, etc. I guess it is a hit or miss thing on whether they deliver what they promise. I have always wondered why they charge so much. Now the ones like PP and Area Diesel that offer add on control boxes, those parts do cost. But those that offer just a custom tuning of the ECM, why is the price so high. I did a custom tune, complete with paying for my tuner box, for my '06 Jeep Liberty Diesel that deleted EGR, increased power/torque, and balanced injectors for around $450. Yet the big truck folks want anywhere from $2000 to $3000 to do the same thing.
This leads me to another option. I just had my DDEC IV Series 60 tuned by Trent "Diesel Doctor". Actually I got it done by his sister at Walcott, since she does it there while Trent does it at Effingham. Got in there and balanced the injectors, upped the HP, upped the torque, removed the EPA Low NOx settings, streamlined the power curve. All for a whopping $300. And all future tweaks and changes are for free.
Will see how much the improvements make, but first results are interesting. To get a true picture, I am going to have to run this for a month and track fuelings to see how this plays out.
I started the day, before the tune, and fueled in Crawfordsville, IN. I ran to Walcott, on flat I-74, a 10 mph cross/tail wind, at around 62 mph. Nice, leisurely run. Averaged 7.5 mpg on the display. Then we did the tune at Walcott and I reset the mpg display. When I left there, I had a 20 mph crosswind, and running west, the rolling hills of Iowa, some which require a full power pull. And I bumped up the speed to between 65 and 70 mph. Results? When I got to just shy of Des Moines, I almost the same 7.5 mpg running that hard as I did running flat ground, slower, with a tail wind, same load, same fuel. If the run had been under the same conditions as earlier in the day, I would bet the mpg would have been over 8 mpg easily. The engine ran much more smoothly, and the response was considerably better. On the harder pulls, the EGT's never got over 750F. Minor changes on the accelerator netted better performance than before. This was a real pleasure to drive.
I would recommend anyone interested in something like this give Trent a call or stop in where he or his sister does the tunes. You can reach him at 217-994-1831. He is not going to try to turn an engine into a Pike Peak race truck blowing 1000 hp. He is tuning for maximum performance and economy. My 500hp 12.7 Series 60 got bumped up to 550 hp, and the torque got bumped up from 1650 to 1850. Nice performance bump without risking damage. They will tune CAT, Cummins, Detroit, Volvo, Mack and Maxxforce engines. What they can do for each, you need to check with them.
As a side note.... for those that have company trucks. A neat feature that most do not know is in the ECM is called "Driver Reward". It is a feature in a lot of ECM's. Just have to check to see if yours has it. Basically, if you reach certain criteria, you can go over the speed limiter. Trent can go in there and set the criteria to, say, 1 mpg. If you are getting 1 mpg or better, you can them go over the speed limiter if the driver reward feature is turned on, which Trent can also do. So there is your speed limiter override solution, without messing with the speed limiter. Have fun!